SNP is vote of confidence (Jean Urquhart)

This election is on course to result in the Scottish National Party forming the government in Scotland.

The SNP is dedicated to the cause of making Scotland the best it can be and committed to localism not centralism as some would have you believe.

Employing more police and seeking, through consultation, a more efficient management system, does not equate with centralisation of the police force. In spite of an unprecedented reduction in the block grant from Westminster the SNP government has tried to protect the settlement to local authorities, maintaining the quality of local services.

Road Equivalent Tariff (RET) applied to the Western Isles ferries was, and is, an attempt to stimulate the economy in a group of islands whose population was haemorrhaging; RET applied here would see significant increases in ferry fares and therefore be quite wrong.

Given another term in office this government would seek to improve other services where it can and where the need is greatest.

Shetland has a long history of returning the Liberal candidate regardless of any national trend. This may be the time to consider the wider political landscape; policies that will keep education free, maintain police numbers, continue to cap local taxation, re-introduce the bill to increase the price of alcohol because it’s the right thing to do, and introducing the small business bonus thus saving business closure (even in Shetland).

I am hopeful that recognition of these and other achievements will be acknowledged when you vote next week. A vote for the SNP is a vote of confidence in the future of Shetland and Scotland.

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20 comments

Peter Fraser

April 27th, 2011 20:16

Voting SNP means that you will be voting for five more years of a political and economic fantasist as First Minister. Five more years of Alex Salmond shouting “It’s Scotland’s Oil” when in fact most of the oil lies in Shetland’s waters. Five more years of environmental destruction and economic waste as Salmond peruses his windmills fantasy of “Making Scotland the Powerhouse of Europe”. Five more years of Salmond’s quixotic conflict and bickering with Westminster due to a rabid pursuit of independence ideology. Five years of a candidate that knows little of Shetland and will put a perceived ‘greater good of Scotland’ ahead of what’s best for Shetland

OK then Peter! What’s the alternative? You’re very good at knocking the SNP, who’s track record in Government is as good as any. Let’s hear some constructive argument for whatever outfit you support and let’s hear their track record. Oh! they probably haven’t got one as they’ve probably never actually been in government in Scotland. Aye, you’re right, most of the North Sea and Atlantic oil does lie around Shetland but until someone other than the “Forvik” nutter comes up with a viable scheme to lay claim to it without precipitating a civil war, I guess we’re stuck with Hollyrood, and, with any luck, another few years of the only decent Government Scotland has seen since Burns wrote “Sic a parcel o’ Rogues”! Quite apt I think!

SNP, Scottish Nationalists, born out of xenophobia. Every nationalist argument could be turned and used to argue for Shetland Nationalist and Independence for Shetland. What a good idea, lets swap “The Nationalist Fat Banker” for Clueless and his Clowns, under king Tavish the Fence Sitter.. LONG live tribalism in Scotland. Who is for a free Foula party? Has Jean whatshername been to Shetland yet?. Scottish Nationalist could be mixed up with Social Nationalist. Tribalism rules forever.

German Imperialism, xenephobia here I come. All I want is self goverment for Shetland, free of colonial imperialist control and fiancial dominance of the Scots. The oil and the wind is Shetland’s. Let the Fat Banker pillage his own land and exploit his own, not us. Lost your sense of humour Tom.?

Mr Tinkler, Are you in some way linked to Captain Calamity, AKA the Forvik nutter? Let’s be real. It’s not going to happen in anybody’s lifetime so you might as well forget that one. Can we not just make the best of a bad job and glean as much devolved power back to Scotland as a whole as we can. Hopefully, someday we may be able to shake off the last shackles of English rule and become a true nation once more. We may once have been “Bought and sold for English Gold” but Gordon Brown, having sold it all, has made sure that can’t happen again. Perhaps he was a closet Nationalist after all!

What I wrote previously was very much tongue in cheek, what follows unfortunately is not. Social Nationalism is fascist racism, certainly not German imperialism. Tribalism, racism and sectarian bigotry are alive and well in Scotland (for example Celtic Rangers!!!) All Nationalism is based on tribal racism, bigotry under a different guise. Fortunately Salmond is no Hitler; he lacks magnetism and the charisma. Help us all if such a leader arose under a banner of Scottish Nationism. That would be no joke. I am English Scottish and regard independence for Scotland a truly pointless piece of fantasy based on no more than racism and prejudice.

I feel sorry for Mr Tinkler. Clearly not an SNP supporter, but equally clearly rattled enough at the very real prospect of a memorable SNP win on Thursday, that he feels the need to resort to infantile name calling against some SNP politicians and accusing all SNP members and supporters of being prejudiced and racist.

Mr Tinkler, if you feel that the idea of an independent Scotland is fantasy because Scotland is too poor or too stupid to govern our own affairs, then so be it, you are entitled to your own opinion. However it will be up to all of Scotland’s electors to make their minds up when the time comes. I am confident that the majority of Scots will decide that they like the idea of being citizens of a small independent social democratic nation, similar to the 4 million or so Norwegians who have enjoyed that status for the last 106 years.

Does anyone think that Norwegians are zenophobic racists for being citizens of their own small nation? No of course not, and Scots are no different.

If Mr Tinkler knew anything about the history of the Scottish National Party since it’s birth nearly 80 years ago, he would know that the party ethos is the complete opposite of what Mr Tinkler claims. In an independent Scotland there will be no ethnic cleansing Mr Tinkler, who knows, if you decide to stay you might find that you like living in a country which respects the rights of all citizens, and which uses it resources to feed and house it’s citizens rather than fight wars because it does not like the way other countries run their own affairs.

For nearly all of Willie’s statements, above one could swap the word Shetland for Scotland. Sorry Willie, a free Shetland within a United Britain and Europe and humanity would be my choice. Human beings are one species. It is Tribalism and nationalist racism that causes wars. Colin Hunters reference to “last shackles of English rule and become a true nation once more” rather prove my point. A xenophobic chip on the shoulder perhaps, I thought the Union was Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The English only rule at home nation’s football! (That was a joke so does not send in your brown shirts.) With regard to who wins this election to the pretendy parliament I care not. I just want to expose racism, bigotry and nationalism for what it is. I will not support any party, I will vote for an indepedant candidate.

If British nationalism is ok and freedom for Shetland is ok, then why not Scottish independence? Scotland has been an independant nation for longer than it has been part of the Union. With most of the nations of the UN smaller than Scotland, it is unacceptable for someone who I suspect is not originally from Scotland to deny Scots the right of self determination, a right enshrined in UN Charter. The SNP believes in civic nationalism Mr Tinkler, for positive reasons – as Winnie Ewing said many years ago when she won a memorable election victory ” stop the world, Scotland want’s to get on”. This still applies today, where an independent Scotland would be a good neighbour to our fellow nations of the British Isles, and would be a good friend to the many nations who share our common interests and values. With at least 7 of our MSPs and MPS, and many many members and supporters born in England, please dont give us this nonsense about the SNP being anti-English.

And yes Mr Tinkler, I also believe in the right of Shetland to self-determination, indeed I have campaigned for 3 decades within SNP national forums for Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles to have greater autonomy – up to Faroese status – if the islands express a desire for this.

I do not wish for an independent Shetland any more than an independent Scotland. Can you not see I wish people to unite together and turn their backs on national prejudice, national self interest, greed, racism and tribalism? I am using “The Independent Shetland argument to ridicule your facile point of view. Join your own little tribe if you must. The people of Shetland will have no wish to join with you. Your last election result in Shetland well shows that!!! This election will do the same.

The people of Scotland will have, in due course, a referedum on the Independence issue. It will settle the issue once and for all.

But Shetland? Be very, very careful what you wish for. Just imagine a vote that gives Shetland Independence. No more funding from outwith; raising your own taxes etc etc etc – and rapid depopulation to around 1,500 souls as the rats desert the sinking ship.

It should be no surprise to potential voters that Ms Urquhart and Mr Mowat are trying to defend the indefensible in response to my recent letter, however the facts speak for themselves.

Who else but a political fantasist with delusions about the status of Scotland’s First Minister would name their election helicopter ‘Saltire One’, (hired at a rate of £1000 per hour). If the electorate had indulged Alex Salmond’s ’Celtic Lion’ fantasies in 2007, where he saw Scotland emulating the Irish Republic’s ‘Celtic Tiger’ model, then we too would be bankrupt and crawling to England and the IMF with a begging bowl.

A vote for SNP will mean more ‘siddy meal’ for Shetland from a ‘greedy minister’.

The SNP minister ignored community wishes and gave to ok to close Scalloway secondary school, doubtless to be copied in the next parliament when the other threatened Shetland schools land on the new minister’s desk.

Late in 2007 the SNP Minority Government published a white paper on the future of Government, in Scotland. It was full of positive reasons why the present Devolution settlement of 1999, can be improved upon. People throughout Scotland read the document and many contributed to the “National Conversation”. The document outlines a number of possiblties, from status quo to full independence, with many options, in between. The Calman Comission deliberated and reported on a narrower range of options. Labour, Lib-Dems and Tories have all used the negative scaremongering option, on Independence. If there is a good case for survival of the Union, then they would really need to start outlining some positive reasons for this. The SNP is a modern, Social Democratic, middle of the road party, with similarities to the best run and most successful countries, in Europe; Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. “After all people in Shetland, Orkney and Caithness, with their Nordic past, often regard themselves as part of Scandinavian Scotland.”

Far from being a “National Conversation” Salmond’s independence diktats encourage anti-English xenophobia and division within Scotland. Fortunately it is only the Westminster government that can hold a legal referendum on the break-up of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

I notice that Mr. Mowat has dropped Ireland from his list of successful European countries. If in 1939-45 Scotland, like these countries, had been independent then the outcome of WWII would have been very different.

“After all people in Shetland, Orkney and Caithness, with their Nordic past, often regard themselves as part of Scandinavian Scotland”. I am not sure whose fantasy Mr. Mowat is indulging here but Shetland’s ‘Scandinavian history’ lasted about 600 years from late 9th to late 15th Century. Following our ‘Nordic past’ came over 400 years of Scots oppression and exploitation from Earl Robert Stewart through to the Scots merchant lairds. It is this more recent history that is relevant to Shetland rather than some pseudo-Scandinavian nostalgia.

There is no doubt that the worst thing that could happen to Shetland since the Scots lairds is a broken-up Gt. Britain with Alex Salmond in charge of an independent Scotland. Peter Fraser

Glad to see the fires are burning north, north of the the border of England. Since devolution took hold. Here in merry England majority of people are resigned to the fact that Scotland is now seperate or independent already. Not through general igronance but merely constant report of drip drip effect into funding and policies. This has effected the mindset here in England to the point of “Can we have the vote seperate England from Scotland now”. I too remember my time in Unst in the 1980’s during service career of the passion of Shetlanders being noted as not Scottish. But I bare no malise when or maybe soon Scotland and youselves become seperate from us Anglo-Saxons. Wassail Shetlanders

Nationalism is fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind as a stone and as irrational as a headless chicken. Nationalism is a religion, the egg from which wars are hatched. and is a menace to liberty.

Nationalism means advocating plunder in the interests of the privileged class of your particular country. Politically speaking, nationalism always insists that its own people are surrounded by ‘a world of enemies’ ‘one against all’ and that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique and individual.

Seas of blood have been shed for the sake of nationalism. One would expect the harm and irrationality of nationalism to be self-evident to everyone.

Nationalism is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a web of lies and falsehoods, robbing us of our dignity and increasing our arrogance and conceit. If the test of nationalism comes only by reflexively falling into step behind the leader whenever the flag is waved, then what we have is a formula for dictatorship, not democracy.

Certain men in authority will think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive. Our patriotism should be of the wider, nobler kind which recognises justice and reasonableness in the claims of others and which lead our country into comradeship with other nations of the world.

Having read through the various letters I’m struck that apart from one, no one seems to have taken in the English dimension.

It should be remembered that at the time of the Union the English were against it and were bounced into it, and a high price to bail out a failed state, I have to say that that feeling of antipathy is back with a vengeance.

The first step to freeing ourselves from the shackles of foreign domination was when we smashed the Scottish Raj in Westminster in May 2010.

Unfortunately though If England is given the opportunity to vote on the break up of the UK, and I for one would not shed a tear if it was , our votes would be cancelled out by the 8 million Scots and other non Englsh people living and working (mainly in the civil service ,local government or other wealth spending sectors of the English economy) in my country,

So please take that fateful step , show you’ve got the courage that enables you to accept your own shortcomings and be able to admit your own mistakes instead of blaming others, help liberate the English and vote for independence. I urge the SNP to seize the day and declare an immediate referendum.

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